Norwegian Stein P. Aasheim, a full-time adventurer for thirty years who had climbed Mount Everest, twice skied across Greenland, cycled alone through the Sahara and paddled through Siberia, and his wife, Ragnhild, one of Norway's foremost mountain climbers, spent a full year in isolation on Spitsbergen.

Despite their wealth of experience, the couple's stay in the Arctic was something quite apart, presenting them as it did with entirely different challenges - primarily because they had with them their two children, Ingvill (6) and Eline (13). For the youngsters, life in a lonely cabin was totally alien to the one they were accustomed to in Norway. It was a year spent close to the sights and sounds of nature in an awesome landscape dominated by jagged mountain peaks and imposing glaciers, all set in what may justifiably be described as the most magnificent expanse of country in the whole Arctic region. But it was also a year of illimitable challenges. Would the girls remember it only as one year in which they were made to reside in a simple cabin miles away from civilization - or as a unique experience, a treasured memory that would remain alive for ever?